You Belong With Me
by Trisana Artemis Cahill
Summary: Hypoxia is a serious problem that can come with some… complicated effects. Fitz's condition to waking up from his coma is one that no one ever expected. He's fine! He can think properly. He can work perfectly. Though it doesn't take them long to realize that instead of his logic being damaged, it's his emotions. So when Fitz starts to treat Skye the way he used to treat Jemma…..


Don't Forget About Us

**Wakeup Call**

Beep….. Beep….. Beep.….. Beep…..Beep…..

The rhythm cycled through her head, echoing through her skull, drowning out the rest of her thoughts.

Drowning…. Ha!

She gave a mirthless laugh at the painful irony of the word. Drowning was the very reason for the maddening, high pitched pounding of the infuriating beeping noise.

"Knock, knock?" a soft voice whispered at the door, trying to not disturb her musings. "You okay, Simmons?"

Jemma twisted in her seat in order to face her friend, putting on a tired smile that Skye could see right through.

"I'm alright." She assured her friend, though the raspy sound in her throat lessened the believability of her statement."

Despite Jemma's obvious lie, Skye nodded, accepting her statement for the 'Please, don't ask' plea that it was.

"And Fitz?" the question hung in the air as both women turned to stare at the red headed, Scottish man, lying in the bed helplessly. It broke their hearts to see him like this, both of their minds wandering to better times.

"Still breathing." Jemma said in a failed attempt for optimism, leaving out the still heard 'barely'.

"Look…." Skye started, moving to sit in the chair on the other side of Fitz's bed. "What you told me the other day…"

Jemma winced, "I don't want to talk about that."

"He told he loves you!" Skye exclaimed, wide eyed, ignoring the glare Jemma was sending her way. "Okay… maybe not in those exact words, but you can't just ignore it! What are you going to do when he wakes up?"

"I don't know!" Jemma cried, desperation and defensiveness clear in her voice. "I don't know… I'm not even sure I…"

"You're not sure of what?" Skye searched.

"If I'll stay." Jemma muttered, gazing out the hospital window, refusing to meet her eyes.

"Not stay?" Skye asked. She couldn't possibly mean… "Like stay at the hospital? Like you're going back to the Bus, not stay?"

"I'll umm… I'll wait, till the end of the month, but I've requested some time off." Jemma explained, now staring at her hands in avoidance. "To go see my mum and dad."

There was something in her voice that made Skye not believe her. "But you'll come back after right?"

"I've spoken to Coulson about it….."

"No! No, no, no, no!" Skye panicked, leaning forward and starting to bang her hand on the bed before realizing there was a person lying there. "You can't leave! We need you! Fitz needs you!"

"I just… need some time to myself." Jemma said, turning to look at her partner in the bed. "And besides… I'm not leaving for a few weeks. If Fitz isn't awake by the end of the month… then it'll be time to move on."

"Move on?" Skye gaped at her. "As in, forget about him?"

"No!" Jemma cried, frustrated that Skye wasn't understanding her. "I could never forget… Fitz… I just mean… We all have to get back to our lives eventually, right?"

Skye was speechless. While she knew Jemma's argument had logic to it… Fitz had been in a coma for FIVE DAYS now! After saving HER life! She would have never thought she would hear that coming from Jemma Simmons, about Leo Fitz, of all people! They were… They were Fitzsimmons… they were a team… a pairing! Skye looked at the woman standing in front of her, and saw no trace of the happy, bubbly, smiling girl she had met… God, had it really been over a year?

"If that's really how you feel," Skye snapped at her, her eyes full of harsh judgment and anger. "Maybe you should just leave now. Fitz shouldn't be around attitude like that when he wakes up. He's been through enough already."

Jemma fought back a sob as she watched Skye walk out the door.

She didn't mean… She didn't want… She just didn't know what to do.

It's not that she didn't care about Fitz anymore. She… cared about him very deeply. But she didn't think she could spend the rest of her life – hell, the rest of the week – knowing that Fitz wasn't there to bicker with… because of her… because she lived, and he went comatose. She couldn't live like that… she just, couldn't.

It was on the ninth day Jemma got the call. She had just fallen asleep – Coulson had finally called and ordered her back to the hotel to get some rest – when her phone started blaring.

"What?" Jemma mumbled sleepily, rubbing her sore eyes awake.

"He's waking up." The voice on the other line told her. Melinda May didn't show much emotion… ever. But if she had been more awake, Jemma would have detected the slight sound of relief and excitement coming from the older woman.

"He's awake?" Jemma asked, bolting up in the bed, now suddenly alert and anxious.

"None of the doctors will let us see him yet. They're making sure everything's alright with him before adding the stress of half a dozen overexcited puppies to the mix." May said, and Jemma could hear her smile. "But yes, Fitz is awake."

Jemma sat straight up in her bed in shock for almost ten minutes before, in a whirlwind of commotion, she raced out the door, pausing only to grab her jacket to cover the Periodic Table of Elements t-shirt she was using to sleep in. Her only focus to get to the hospital…Now. Luckily, the hotel was just next door to the hospital, but it still felt like ages before she skid to a stop right in front of his room, where all her friends seemed to already be waiting.

They all seemed to be trying to look in through the window and get into the room. Unfortunately, the curtains were drawn and there was a woman stopping them from entering.

"What's wrong?" Jemma asked, drawing the attention of the SHIELD agents and the doctor. "Can I see him?"

"Dr. Bride of Frankenstein over here won't let us in." Skye fumed, rolling her eyes at the woman in the doorway.

The doctor – who was actually quite beautiful, though her hair was a bit frizzed - glared at Skye's back, sighing exasperatingly as if she had heard Skye's argument no doubt a dozen times by now.

"I have told you!" The woman… Dr. Fell, according to her name tag, insisted. "Your friend has not been cleared for visitors yet, and in the meantime there are things we must go over."

"Well, we're all here now." Skye pushed, gesturing at the group. "So can we get on with it?"

Dr. Fell took a deep breathe, controlling herself from snapping back at her. "Mr. Fitz has just gone through great trauma and there are many… issues that could come out of this ordeal."

"Such as?" Skye rolled her eyes.

"Your friend almost drowned." Dr. Fell explained, "But it's more than that. Mr. Fitz suffers from Cerebral, Latent and Hypoxic Hypoxia. This could cause a whole number of problems that you have to be prepared for him to deal with."

"Like?" Skye again rolled her eyes. She was getting really tired of the doctor not giving her straight answers.

"Headaches, decreased reaction time, impaired judgment, Euphoria, visual impairment, drowsiness, lightheaded or dizzy sensations, memory loss, memory confusion, emotional confusion… I'm told he's a scientist? Hypoxia can cause extreme damage to his brain. Higher level thinking will get harder, loss of higher brain capacity… his fine motor skills!" All of what she was listing made sense… and it scared the hell out of all of them. "You'll have to be patient with him."

There was a moment of silence as they all tried to process the effects of what those things could to do Fitz, before Trip stepped forward, brushing past the doctor.

"We'll deal with it." He said as he opened the door against the doctor's protests.

Everyone stumbled into the room and froze at the sight that lay ahead of them.

"Hey guys!" Fitz greeted them happily, jumping off the bed he had been sitting on, and walking to meet them halfway.

They were shocked at how bouncy Fitz seemed to be as he approached, wide eyed and smiling.

"How are you so full of energy, right now?" May asked incredulously "You just woke up from a coma."

"Must be the Euphoria." Fitz explained "It's one of the symptoms for Hypoxia."

"Yeah," Skye snarked dryly, turning to look at the doctor behind them. "So we've been told."

Fitz grinned as he was soon bombarded with excited exclamations and congratulations and laughter.

"Fitz."

Again, everyone grew quiet as Jemma spoke up. They moved to the side as Jemma drew closer, stepping a few feet away from him. She wasn't sure what his reaction would be. She wasn't sure what her reaction would be, but she held her breath as all of his focus centered on her.

He gave her a small smile, stepping forward another foot.

"Simmons." He said….. Extending his hand in greeting.

To say she was surprised would be an understatement, and as she hesitantly pushed out her own hand to shake his, Jemma wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry.

Fitz gave her a firm handshake and a polite smile before brushing past her.

Though stunned, Jemma wasn't oblivious enough to miss Fitz moving around her and heading straight for Skye. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head as she watched him sweep her up in his arms and twirl her around in a circle.

Skye, though surprised at Fitz's dismissal of Simmons and his bear hug towards herself, couldn't help but give a small gasp of excitement as he swung her around the room. His laugh in her ear sounded so… happy… so loving. She had never heard such emotion in a laugh before, let alone had it directed at her. But her breath was taken away at the amount of pure love that shone in his eyes as he gently set her back on the ground.

The amount of anger, jealousy, and pure rage that was building up in Jemma's body was scaring even herself, but that didn't stop the emotions from growing. In her haze of emotions at the sight before her, Jemma felt her heart stop. The way Fitz was looking at Skye… like she was the love of his life… she had never felt more hatred for anyone more than she did for Skye, right in that moment. The only thing that seemed to make it through to her brain, and send the spark of a wakeup call to the logical side of her mind, was May's quiet whisper to Trip behind her.

"I don't think Euphoria is his only symptom."


End file.
